


You're a Loose Cannon, MacArthur (But You Get the Job Done)

by karrenia_rune



Category: Seven Days (TV), Sliders
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, Gen, Round 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2010054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saving the world again and again, sometimes leads to unexpected encounters and disconcerting happenstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're a Loose Cannon, MacArthur (But You Get the Job Done)

Disclaimer: Sliders belongs to its producers and creators. It is not mine. Seven Days also belongs to its respective producers, and again, it is not mine. Written for Round 15 of Small Fandoms Fest.  
Note: the title come from the Most Serene Republic song by the same name.

"You're a Loose Cannon, MacArthur, but You Get the Job Done" by Karrenia

 

Getting knocked unconscious in one place only to wake up in another completely unfamiliar was nothing new to Rembrandt Brown, known to his friends and acquaintances as Remy. The inside of his mouth tasted like he’d been chewing on nails, and his head ached. 

There was also something distinctly sharp and metallic poking him in his left flank. When he rolled over and reached down to remove the obstruction, he gasped. For there, ensconced in a huge crevice in the ground was a large capsule.

He quickly scrambled to his feet, and reached out a tentative hand to it, it was hot to the touch and yet smooth, unlike he expected to say, a UFO or a meteor to look like.

‘Okay,’ he thought in the back of his mind, 'so we’re probably not dealing with anything extraterrestrial here. So where did this thing come from? And why do get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m not going to like the answer?’

As if, someone as yet unknown and just outside of his field of vision, had heard his unspoken thoughts someone else appeared just to the left to the spot where he had been crouching, trying to get his bearings and his breath back.

Frank Parker, by now had become more or less accustomed to the bone-jarring, teeth-clenching G-Forces of the ride every time he stepped into his time capsule. He still had not come to grips with was whether or not that old saying about how any landing that one could walk away from would be considered a good landing. 

This current jaunt was certainly not his first time at the proverbial rodeo, nor would it be his last, and while he would not have traded this job for any other, there were times when it was tempting. 

“What the hell are you doing lying around over there?” rumbled Frank Parker. The specifics of his current back-slide were quite specific and allowed for very little wiggle room to deviate from said specifics. 

This was not the first time that a civilian had happened to stumble across his capsule, and he’d been forced to dodge questions that verged from the merely frightened to the curious to the downright annoying; he didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with it right now.

Remy blinked and then blinked some more, using the backs of his hands to rub at the grit that coated his face and eyelids, but was not completely successful. A persistent, dull throb made itself behind his eyeballs and he did immediately answer the question put to him by the ill-tempered white man in the orange coverall.

Remy heaved a sigh and then added, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? My ears are ringing.”

“I said,” Parker growled,” What the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, for starters, I’m trying to determine where I am?”

“You’re in a cornfield in Nebraska,” Frank remarked, at last, wondering if this strange man was one of those nerdy science fiction geeks who specialized in the pursuit of paranormal phenomena: like crop circles and UFO sightings and the like. If that was the case, Frank wondered what he should do about it. His first instinct was to grab this nut case and haul him to the nearest police station; let the local authorities deal with him.

“Nebraska?

“Yeah, but didn’t you know that already?”

Remy stood up, and swayed dizzyingly for a moment or two before he managed to remain steady, the ringing in his ears now noticeably less and he was able to focus on his immediate surroundings.

“What are you doing here? The other man asked, while his posture and body language still indicated that he was feeling the effects of having come into close proximity with the appearance of his capsule, Parker was able to pick him out as a Southerner, by accent and inflections. 

Frank thought, ‘Awfully long way from home, isn’t he?’

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” Parker remarked. “Look we could stand around here jawing all day, but I don’t have the time for it.”

“Funny you should mention time because I was about to ask you what will amount to a very strange question.”

“Shoot,” Parker invited.

“Is this, well, is this the present day?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that? Frank replied, trying for a neutral, understanding tone of voice but not entirely succeeding, and his body language was giving off the completely opposite vibe. He stood with his body turned at angle, his arms akimbo but where he could easily reach into his pocket for his service revolver, and his feet firmly planted on the damp ground, wondering if this guy were a spy, or someone planted her to prevent him from accomplishing his mission.

“I mean, is it,” the black man turned and consulted what looked to be some kind of over-sized VCR remote control device, but with a hell of a lot more buttons, instead of a watch. “Well, not the year, but I mean, it’s complicated. This is the right place, but I’m not certain it’s the right time. There’s a certain person I was supposed to meet or stop, it gets dreadfully confused if Y'all catch my drift.”

“Oh, the hell with it!” exclaimed Frank. “Get up off the ground and come with me. Maybe I’m the person you were supposed to meet and maybe not, but I’m on a tight schedule and I’ve got to the power plant before my time runs out.”

“Power plant? Yes, that does sound familiar.”

“You got a name?” asked Frank.

“Remy Brown, actually it’s Rembrandt, but all my friends call me Remy, and you are?”

“Frank Parker.”

“Are you are always like this?”

“No, not always, but then I’ve never be booted out willy-nilly by the ah, system, before

There was a lot that Frank was not being said in that statement than had actually said but he did not feel like pursuing it just at the moment, as they left the cornfield and off onto the dirt road that lined its northern verge.

They traveled together without speaking for a while, hardly interrupted in their awkward silence by the passage of either motorized traffic or pedestrians, covering the distance to the power plant.

By this time Remy had placed the timer inside his coat pocket, and hadn’t mentioned anything more about it.

The power plant was a good-sized industrial complex fenced in on three sides by an electrified barbed-wire fence but neither of them could see any guards but that did not necessarily mean that there weren’t any on the premises.  
**  
Frank approached the front gates and brazened his way in, flashing an apparently legitimately identification card through the slit in the electronic board at the door, which flashed from red to green and swung open for them to get inside.

The décor was either low-budget or early modern industrial because it appeared that whichever company owned this place had not gone to much trouble to keep on the cutting edge; it was clearly meant to be utilitarian and that was that.

Remy wished that he’d hadn’t been on a solo mission; and he did not both hands to be able to count the number of times he’d be on his own, without the others on hand to get him out if he got his neck in too deep, and his only would-be ally in this venture was a prickly, testy, man wearing orange coveralls and a US flag on his shoulder.

Frank seemed to know where he was going because after many, many twists and turns and climbs upstairs and one trip up a service elevator they reached the main heart of the power plant.

There was a man wearing goggles and a plain brown apron holding a very large wrench over what appeared the critical mechanism caught in the act of quite literally destroy the entire plant.

Reeve Betancourt, I presume,” Frank Parker began.  
The man thus addressed startled and dropped his wrench on the ground.

“You!”

“Yeah, me, I get that a lot,” Parker scoffed. “I got wind that you had a reputation for pulling stunts like this, and while it’s not up to your usual style of low-budget terrorism, I’m still going have to ask you to stop.”

“And if I don’t?’” challenged the other man.

“Then I’ll stop you. Get my drift?” Frank demanded.

Remy had come in at the tail-end of this exchange and did not know what to expect, but when he took a full assessment of the situation he was forced to take a double take on the man facing off against Frank Parker was none other than a spitting image of himself, minus the swagger and the soulful brown eyes.

It would have been more of a shock if he hadn’t been a veteran of several slides into alternate realities with the rest of friends and teammates.

Frank, not noting any of this, took a glance at his watch. “Cut the theatrics, Betancourt, we both know how this has to end, “pulled his gun out and took aim.  
Betancourt dived and rolled, trying to pull his own gun out, but that was when he felt rather than saw someone else rush toward him and pin his arms to his sides. “What the hell!” he exclaimed.

“What are you doing? Frank yelled.

Remy sighed and replied: “Trying to end this is the way that will prevent the most blood-shed. Can’t you ah, arrest, prevent him from blowing us all to kingdom without killing him first?”

“I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be as much fun,” sighed Frank and trod forward and covered the distance in a few long loping strides, pulling out a pair of handcuffs from and indicating with a nod of his head that Remy should let Betancourt up off the ground, before placing the handcuffs on the older man.

“But I haven’t actually ah, done anything yet.

“No, but you were going to in the next twelve to fifteen minutes, and I couldn’t afford to take that chance, and as these things go, it wouldn’t exactly make the national news headlines, if that’s what you were going for?”

“No, no, but it would make a statement,” Betancourt replied.

“What kind of statement? “Remy asked.

“I’m not a terrorist, I’m a scientist”

“Is there a difference?” asked Remy.

“I should think so, “Betancourt replied, looking at Remy as he did so. “Hey, you know we look an awful lot alike. It’s like I’ve always said that in a world of possibilities there is exists that possibility that somewhere, someplace each of us has an identical twin. And if we could just utilize the energy of electromagnetic energy fields we could create punch a hole in the fabric of reality as we know it and located our, well, alternate selves.”

Remy instinctively flinched, this guy and his idea of alternate selves hit too close to him, and so to avoid the man going on in any more depth. “Didn’t you say we were on a strict timetable, shouldn’t we get this guy to the authorities and let them deal with him as soon as possible?”

“Right you are, let’s go, and the sooner the better. I don't want to be late," Parker stated.


End file.
